I brought this machine in last Thursday and thought it might make an interesting cnc project.

Steven, Jude and I plugged it in and played a bit with the the Homing function and it showed promise! After the weekend I stopped in Monday for the ehack night and talked to Pete (thanks Pete for the links). Pete thought it might make a good 3D printer...I was secretly holding out for a CNC Laser cutter. Laser cutter looks too $$$$. Ed Bring in the Laser parts!

So I opened it up and looking at the parts I felt I might be in a little deep. GROUP PROJECT!John stopped in and took notice...Helped me start a Wiki...Thanks to Paul for helping with the user set up...and tore in...Adam showed up and John and Adam teamed up to try Adams boards...10:00pm I had to go.Ed ordered Pizza I assume they stayed and worked. Hope to keep this going. Thanks to everyone last night!Tom

I don't get on the forms much but I figured I would give a quick update to the viewers-at-large

The electronics conversion to make this device a large 3D printer is done. I had three 4A IM463 stepper motor drivers. Adam loaned us his Makerbot Motherboard and extruder controller (and likely the extruder head itself). It took a few days but Wednesday evening (actually it was Thursday morning about 2AM), using ReplicatorG, this little robot 3d printer took her first steps!

I was back in today, cleaning up the wiring and trying to locate an ATX (or other) power supply that provides 3.3v, 5v, and 12v. The catch is it needs to be small, about 2"x7", and no taller than about 1.5" Small I know! But I think I found the solution... Stop by and take a look!

Adam was in and made some change to the ReplicatorG configuration files to calibrate each axis. Thanks for this Adam.

Now we need someone to design a mount for the Z-axis to mount the extruder head. Something universal would be ideal so we could swap out the extruder head for other things like a dremel tool, etc.

I stopped in yesterday afternoon and noticed Adam had successfully got the machine to draw a 10mm square! John stopped in and started to work on the electronics. I pried my way in and helped take things apart. ( I am trying to learn as much as possible by doing). I picked up a smaller power supply...hope it can be used. Progress continues... Thanks to all for the encouragement... Tom

it looks like makerbot is still out of extruders. So since we got a bridgeport /lathe, I am proposing that we create our own extruder. I would like it to be more of a resevor (sp) and screw feed system. If we do a resevor we would need to find a way to put something on the walls so the plastic doesn't stick to it. The makerbot use (last time I looked) a ptfe tube for theirs. Soo and idea would be to create a box out of ptfe, and surround it with aluminum. The heat source that I would use would be a ceramic cartriage heater. Now in order to dispense the goo I would like to use a srcrew mechanism to push it out. I think that it might be possible to grind the cutter off a drill bit. Put it down some ptfe tube. and throw that into pipe. Attach the top to a stepper motor (some how)

In looking at the parts involved, I think we have everything we would need at the hackfactory (With the exception of a cartridge heater), including the mill to machine the parts.

I vote for something simple like this first.. What says you Adam??

As a side note, I did get to the HF tonight, along with some other fine gentlemen and a fine beverage, both of which shall remain nameless. I rewired the Z-axis motor for 12v off of the internal "mini" supply and it seems to work fine. Its certainly a lot cooler now. In the process I had to clean up some other wires. I thing I'll call it good for now. I need to mount the 12v DC in jack but I may do that tomorrow.